Best D&D-ish adventure that doesn't require a PhD?

[bjj8383]

I've run parts of Savage Tide and Expedition to Demonweb Pit, some of the older Pathfinder paths, and I spent today reading over the first installment of Age of Worms. And regarding all of them, I have one question:

Why the sh** fu** are these plots so bloody complicated?? I feel like in order to run these, either as a DM or player, you'd need a PhD and a wall-sized flow chart to make heads or tails of it.

The thing is, I'm DMing for a group at the moment who really, reallllly suck at that sort of detail work. They just want to have a plot-driven adventure that doesn't require the use of libraries of footnotes or mountains of spreadsheets.

So my pleading question is, what printed purchasable Lvl 1-20 adventure best fulfills these two criteria:

1) Plot: Keep it simple. No layers-up-layers of subterfuge and superfluous details.

2) If I'm paying for an adventure, I want it to bloody well contain ALL of the primary plot information I need. It seems to me that, of all the adventures I mentioned above, I somehow end up doing literally half of the work anyway. (And not because "every group is different" and I need to create stuff due to our unique shenanigans. I mean, in these printed adventures, there is usually zero work done to connect the dots. HOW do the PCs know to go to the plot-central castle? WHAT on earth does this artifact have to do with anything? If they don't find Important Clue #1, WHAT specifically do I do? If I'm forking out $50, I. Want. Straightforward. Instructions.)

By the way, I'm not limited to pure D&D. Pathfinder/3rd Party/Other are fine.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou for meaningful help!

[CharonsHelper]

I've never had trouble with Paizo APs.

I played through a bit of Skull & Shackles (unfortunately I came on just before the campaign died) and other than the extra system for running the ship, the plot wasn't that tricky.

I went through the first few books of Legacy of Fire (drawback is that it was originally 3.5 - so the GM had to do a bit of converting) and it was pretty fun/basic in an Arabian Nights sort of way. (though the pugwumpy fights early on got annoying)

We went through the first book of Strange Aeons (still hoping that we'll get that campaign going again) - and it was a bit weird - but it was Lovecraftian - it's supposed to be weird!

I haven't played it - but from what I've heard Rise of the Runelords is a classic for a reason.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

My buddy bought me the Tales of the Yawning Portal book to run.

We're about 1/2 way through The Sunken Citadel and its pretty darned straight forward. I mean you can make an alliance or you can choose not to even by accident but it is playable either way.

[Frozen_Feet]

Try some simple location-based adventure. Lamentations of the Flame Princess publishes quite a few, with God that Crawls, Death Frost Doom, Death Love Doom and Tower of the Stargazer fitting your stated requirements even if their subject matters might not suit your tastes.

This said, while my experience with TSR and WotC published modules is meager, those I've seen have not been particularly complex. Just incomplete to the point where you need to run them very linearly or you'll run out of gameable content. Few lessons in improvisational acting or storytelling would be more usefull in dealing with that than any sort of PhD.

[Nupo]

The one you make yourself. It's not that hard, and in many ways easier than trying to figure out a published one. And best of all it's free.

[gkathellar]

Well that's in general what people want APs for - complex plots that they don't have to come up with themselves. I think if APs were simpler, many people would say, "I could come up with this," and skip them.

That's not an endorsement, to be clear - it's just that what you're describing is a feature, not a bug.

[FabulousFizban]

google d&d cartoon walkthrough. i think you'll find the droids you are looking for.

[Anonymouswizard]

Modules seem to come in two rough types. You have linear modules (like I believe most of Paizo's output) where there is a plot and it's assumed the party will be willing to make a few choices to keep on the rails, and you have sandbox modules (like most of the stuff put out for Lamentations of the Flame Princess) where you're given a setting with a bunch of tasks to do and massive problems to solve but there's no required actions from the players.

I much prefer the latter, which tend to be even more complex with hot the PCs affect the events described generally not being stated, with the best also generally having some sort of ticking timer or the like.

My personal choice for best module ever would be Better Than Any Man for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It presents an area from Germany in the Thirty Years War in a world like ours but there are really monsters in the woods. It then presents a central location that has been taken over by seven magic users who enforce a no violence no religion policy, and several adventure locations within a day's travel. But the Swedes are coming, the PCs have only seven days to adventure until the magic users are killed and their town burnt to the ground, eight until the same happens to the provincial capital. They can try to save these towns from the Swiss, but doing so requires solving the refugee problem and killing all seven magic users, and if the players want they can just sirens six or seven days adventuring in the local region and run.

But that's the opposite of what you want. I honestly don't remember the modules you mentioned being that complex, but if I see something that meets you're criteria I'll post it here. I have heard very good things about the 5e modules though.

[bc56]

I'll second TFTYP, it's got 7 adventures (d&d 5e), which have all of the following

-famous (varying degrees)
-difficult (harder as it progresses)
-diverse (they're all dungeons, but they're diverse. No two are quite alike.)

Each adventure also has plot hooks, and anything not in the core books is contained in the book, so you don't need anything more than the module, PHB, DMG, and MM.

[Frozen_Feet]

@Anonymouswizard: Better than Any Man also gets bonus points for being a high-quality product which was handed out for free. It's Raggi showing off, more or less.

[Braininthejar2]

And best of all it's free.

If it costs hours of your work, it's not free

[Anonymouswizard]

@Anonymouswizard: Better than Any Man also gets bonus points for being a high-quality product which was handed out for free. It's Raggi showing off, more or less.

True, it's also intended as advertising for the adventures more than the system (half the reason it doesn't include quickstart rules). Raggi doesn't actually have a set of quickstart rules written, likely because he's put a no art version of the core rules out for free, and openly admits in the opening that the product's primary purpose is to make you buy more LotFP.

I'm actually annoyed I didn't get into LotFP when it was first released, as Is love a physical copy of Better Than Any Man. It's not simple, it's not family friendly, there's a distinct possibility the PCs will all die (okay, that's the likelihood), but it's glorious and it represents exactly the kind of style you can expect from LotFP products. It is very much showing off, but it's the kind of showing off that doesn't make you want to punch them in the face.